Co host of tonight's Clooney fundraiser for Hillary, Haim Saban & Hillary's stance on Israel

[BernieforPres2016]

http://forward.com/opinion/national/325490/does-hillary-clinton-have-a-haim-saban-problem/

<Except Saban’s top priority isn’t a liberal vision of American life. It’s Israel. And he makes no secret of that.

“I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel,” Saban told the New Yorker in 2010.

Last week, Saban displayed a propensity all-too-common among right-leaning Israel advocates in the U.S.: a bit of anti-Muslim bigotry. In an interview, he rejected President Obama’s declaration that a religious test for refugees was “shameful.” Later, Saban, in a statement to the Washington Post, disavowed his push for a religious test and insisted that he “misspoke” — a dubious claim, if you ask me, though he might’ve legitimately been sorry he opened his mouth about the hot-button issue.

Certainly Hillary Clinton’s campaign couldn’t have been pleased; that very day, Clinton had spoken out eloquently and forcefully against the American right’s ugly bigotries. “That is just not who were are,” she said.

Yet Saban’s original comments included more than just advocating a blanket policy that Muslim refugees deserved “more scrutiny.” He also called for profiling and broader surveillance. He said civil liberties should be curtailed in a time of war—never mentioning that the U.S. seems to be locked in a never-ending war.

His disavowal did not speak to these points. Does Hillary Clinton think profiling is “who we are”? Does she think we ought to roll back civil liberties at home as we fight terrorism? Her campaign didn’t say, merely pointing the Washington Post to her remarks last week.>


Haim Saban is the single biggest financial contributor to the Clintons over the last 25 years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/clinton-money/

<The couple’s biggest individual political benefactors are Univision chairman Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl, who have made 39 contributions totaling $2.4 million to support the Clintons’ races since 1992. The Sabans have also donated at least $10 million to the foundation.>

When asked by Bloomberg News in 2014 how much money he would provide for Hillary if she decided to run in 2014, he said "as much as needed."

http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/haim-saban-says-hell-contribute-as-much-as-needed-to-a-hillary-clinton-campaign-1201270500/

<Asked in a Bloomberg TV interview what kind of financial commitment he was ready to make to getting Hillary Clinton elected president should she decide to run, media mogul Haim Saban signaled that he was prepared to contribute “as much as needed.”

Saban, the executive chairman of Univision and CEO of Saban Capital Group, said that Clinton “would be great for the country and great for the world, so on issues I care about, she is pristine plus, and she is already plus plus and I hope that she can make the right decision.”>

Single issue Saban is certainly getting what he paid for from Hillary on Israel recently, in the debate on Thursday night as well as in Hillary's recent speech to AIPAC. This Slate article on her speech is titled "Hillary's AIPAC Speech Was a Symphony of Craven, Delusional Pandering."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/03/hillary_clinton_s_aipac_speech_was_a_symphony_of_craven_delusional_pandering.html

This article from Salon said Hillary's speech "took pandering to a new level" and a quote in the article said it “could well have been written by an Israeli government public relations firm.”

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/21/took_pandering_to_a_new_level_progressives_palestinians_criticize_hillary_clinton_for_israeli_pr_aipac_speech/

[sus453]

1. K and R